


Delay

by strawberriesandtophats



Category: Stravaganza - Mary Hoffman
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Loyalty, Scandal, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 18:10:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10904688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberriesandtophats/pseuds/strawberriesandtophats
Summary: When Rodolfo comes back from University in Padua, young and dashing and ready to tackle the world with all that knowledge, Silvia half-expects him to thank her for her assistance in helping him advance his education, kiss her hand and leave her. After all, she is the duchess and needs to remain officially unattached so that the delicate political balance between the city states can stay on its knife edge. No matter how good she is at diplomacy and negotiation and making orders, politics is a dangerous game for her, and always will be. Marriage is out of the question.He doesn’t leave.He stays.





	Delay

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when I read the entire series again in a few days.

When Rodolfo comes back from University in Padua, young and dashing and ready to tackle the world with all that knowledge, Silvia half-expects him to thank her for her assistance in helping him advance his education, kiss her hand and leave her. After all, she is the duchess and needs to remain officially unattached so that the delicate political balance between the city states can stay on its knife edge. No matter how good she is at diplomacy and negotiation and making orders, politics is a dangerous game for her, and always will be. Marriage is out of the question.

He doesn’t leave.

He stays.

She tells him that there is no chance of children, having shipped Arianna to her sister, a secret that belongs only to her. It would be too dangerous, they would all be targets for Bellezza’s enemies. There is, in fact, no chance of a proper future for them.

Rodolfo just shakes his head and smiles.

So she builds him a laboratory. In her own castle. 

The whispers start before he even moves in. Not just from the staff, who have their rather well-founded suspicions even if she pretended that she was ill. But from the public as well. If he were a woman, they’d call him Silvia’s mistress. If anyone had any real proof, they’d say it was a scandalous affair.

They wait it out. No one will ever be able to prove anything anyway. There is no paper trail. It’s nothing but rumors and subtext. Rodolfo is a handsome man, tall and thin in black velvet as he strides around the city. The rumors never stop, but they fade into a widespread public but benevolent suspicion. They understand why the duchess might have him as her lover, they whisper. Just look at the man.

Rodolfo becomes a senator and a well respected scientist and a known intellectual. The people of Bellezza love his fireworks and his skill with an oar. And the years pass.

How they pass.

Rodolfo’s hair becomes silver and a little stooped. Silvia gets tired of the masks, and of pretense. Bellezza and the other city states are still fighting tooth and nail and everything in her life feels unstable, except Rodolfo’s presence and her little secret on the island, safe and sound. 

Time feels like a luxury these days, with the di Chimici circling around her like vultures. She spends so much time waiting. Fittings and meetings and endless duties. Rodolfo never waivers, no matter how easy it would be for him to find a wife and start his own life away from her.

They get married in a quiet, secret ceremony. There aren’t any rings, but something in Silvia’s heart settles when Rodolfo presses her fingers gently after they’ve returned home and she’s removed her layers and the mask. It’s nothing but a confirmation. And yet…Rodolfo looks at her just like he did all those years ago.

Every year after that, he makes wry comments about jealousy on the day of the marriage between the sea and the duchess. And she always responds that he’s more ever-changing and interesting than the sea. It’s the only half-public conversation about their relationship that they allow themselves. And then only between themselves, who can read the subtext.

Rodolfo stays.

Even when he finds about Arianna and before that, almost ripping himself apart pacing the length of the laboratory. twisting himself in knots thinking about how she’d betrayed him by having a child with another man in secret. 

However, he does threaten that he would have left and taken Arianna if he’d known her plan. She believes him. The look in his eyes terrifying, one she’s never seen directed at herself.

Even after she officially dies, he stays. Puts on a silver ring, too.

He becomes Regent until Arianna comes of age, guiding her and teaching everything he’d learned serving the former duchess. It’s only then, talking to his daughter, Luciano and the esteemed Doctor, that subtext finally becomes text.


End file.
